Jirav
All-in-one FP&A platform for forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and dashboarding, purpose-built for accounting and CFO advisory firms serving SMB clients.
LivePlan
Website: www.liveplan.com
LivePlan at a glance
- Best for
- Advising startups and clients seeking finance
- Pricing model
- Per plan or subscription, with advisor tiers
- Deployment
- Cloud
- Regions
- US, CA, UK
- Key integrations
- QuickBooks Online, Xero
Last reviewed . Pricing and features change frequently — confirm current details with the vendor.
LivePlan is a business planning and financial forecasting platform producing business plans, budgets, and projections, with step-by-step guidance, industry benchmark data, and automated financial statements.
How accounting firms use it
The recurring engagement is a client who needs a formal plan — a startup seeking finance, an established business applying for lending, or an owner preparing for investment. Those readers expect a particular format, and producing it in a word processor with spreadsheet financials attached is slow and rarely looks credible.
Firms also use it beyond the initial document. Connecting the plan to live accounting data turns it into a performance tracking tool, with budget-versus-actual review giving a structured reason to meet the client each quarter. That recurring review is generally worth more to both parties than the plan itself.
Key features
Guided plan creation walks through the standard sections with prompts, producing a document suitable for lenders and investors. Financial projections generate income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow automatically from the inputs.
Industry benchmarks compare a client’s figures against sector data, useful both for advisory discussion and as a plausibility check on projections without trading history.
QuickBooks Online and Xero integration brings actuals in for budget-versus-actual dashboards, and advisor tiers let a firm manage multiple client plans under its own branding.
Who it’s best for
Firms advising startups, businesses seeking financing, and clients that need formal written plans, particularly practices offering business planning as a defined service.
Firms needing granular driver-based modelling, multi-scenario analysis, or rolling forecasts should use PlanGuru or Jirav. Float is the better fit where cash timing rather than planning is the client’s problem.
LivePlan FAQ
- Is LivePlan a forecasting tool or a business plan tool?
- Primarily a business plan tool with forecasting attached. Its strength is producing a presentable plan document with financials, guidance, and benchmarks — the format lenders and investors expect. Firms needing granular driver-based modelling rather than a plan document should use PlanGuru or Jirav.
- Does it connect to accounting data?
- Yes, to QuickBooks Online and Xero, so actuals flow in and can be compared against the plan. This turns a plan from a document produced once into something reviewed periodically, which is where the advisory relationship lives rather than in the initial plan preparation.
- What are the industry benchmarks?
- Aggregated financial data for comparable businesses, letting a firm show a client how their margins and cost ratios compare with their sector. For startups without trading history it also provides a sanity check on projections — a plan assuming margins well outside the sector norm invites questions from a lender.
- Is there an advisor-specific version?
- Yes. Advisor tiers allow a firm to manage multiple client plans under one account with the firm's branding, which is the practical arrangement for a practice offering planning as a service rather than a client subscribing individually.
LivePlan Alternatives
Other budgeting & forecasting tools for accounting firms, ordered by how much of LivePlan's functionality they cover.